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Update: The results are finally in. With 98.5% of votes counted, Western-leaning parties (and independents) have done even better than expected, taking 311 seats. Pro-Russian parties took 112 seats, while 27 seats (mostly Crimean districts) remain unfilled. In other good news, the populists, though represented in the parliament, did relatively poorly: Lyashko’s Radical Party took only 22 seats. Far right parties did even worse, with Svoboda obtaining only 6 seats, and Right Sector 2 seats. These results mark a major change for the Rada, which has typically had parliaments split almost 50/50 between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian parties, and will certainly presage a turn to the West for Ukraine. Unfortunately, Russia has also committed to recognize the results of the Nov 2nd rebel elections in Luhansk and Donetsk. The Rada election results are a major victory for pro-Western democracy, but the crisis in Ukraine is not over.

Original Post: Yesterday, Ukrainian voters went to the polls to elect a new parliament, replacing the deputies elected prior to the Euromaidan protests of early 2014. In a piece at Al-Jazeera America published on Sunday, I highlighted a few ways in which the election results could impact Ukraine’s future relations with Europe, Russia, and the resolution of the ongoing crisis in Eastern Ukraine. Prior to the vote, a high level of uncertainty about the likely makeup of the Rada - especially the election of far right (ie, Svoboda or Right Sector) or populist parties (ie, Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party) – was a major concern, as was the uncertainty over whether they might be represented in government. A new governing coalition will be instrumental in the resolution of the conflict, shaping how aggressively Ukraine pursues the rebels in the Donbas region.

Fortunately, initial exit polls today indicate reasonably positive results. The three mainstream pro-Western parties did well, with the Poroshenko bloc polling around 22.2%, the Popular Front at 21.8%, and surprise contender Samopomich, a Lviv-based moderate party, polling at 14%. These results are excellent news, as a governing coalition with no far right or populist elements should be possible. The far right party Svoboda will be represented in parliament, as will the populist Radical Party, but the latter did worse than expected, taking home only around 6% of the vote. Rounding out the major parties, Yulia Timoshenko’s Fatherland party also did worse than expected, taking just over 5% of the vote. The main surprise is the success of the Opposition Bloc, a successor to Yanokovich’s Party of Regions, which was not expected to obtain seats, but instead took around 7% of the vote.

These results are extremely preliminary, and as with pre-election polling, only give a broad national figure for how people voted. Thus, they predict the 225 seats which are allotted by proportional representation from them, but the remaining 225 seats are elected in each individual district, for which we have no exit polling data. The parties associated with Petro Poroshenko are expected to do well, but these are also likely to yield high numbers of independent candidates. Full results are expected by Thursday morning.

Until we know the final makeup of the new Rada, as well as which parties ultimately will form the coalition government, it’s difficult to assess how the results will impact the ongoing crisis. Many citizens in Crimea and the Donbas were indeed unable to vote, disenfranchising as much as 19% of the population. The overwhelmingly pro-Western nature of the parties elected may be a double-edged sword: it will be popular with Western politicians, but it is in part a reflection of the disenfranchisement of Eastern Ukraine, and will not be truly representative. Despite this, Russian leaders appear to have accepted the results, signaling, hopefully, a willingness to work with Kiev in the future. Whether any government will be able to tackle Ukraine’s myriad problems is unclear. But while full electoral results will give us a better idea of what to expect from a new Ukrainian government, for now, the indications are reasonably positive.

Secretary of State John Kerry met late yesterday in Paris with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Though somewhat overshadowed by Kerry’s meetings with Iran, the meeting nonetheless provided some fascinating clues as to where the Ukraine crisis is headed.

First, international tensions over Ukraine seem to be slowly relaxing, although violence continues to mar the ceasefire in the Donbas itself. Russian troops are withdrawing from the border, as specified in the Minsk Protocol. The United States is making encouraging noises about the possibility of sanction removal. More importantly, Kerry made a clear point of emphasizing Russian-American cooperation and announced that the two countries would engage in intelligence sharing on ISIS. This represents a major about-face for the Obama administration, which just six months ago said its goal was to “isolate President Vladimir Putin.” It seems that faced with the difficulty of managing simultaneous conflicts – something the White House is not good at – officials are opting for a more conciliatory approach to Russia.

Second, Crimea wasn’t mentioned. Though it calls for Ukrainian sovereignty to be respected, the protocol doesn’t explicitly discuss Crimea. In short, it looks like Crimea may be off the negotiating table, effectively ceded to Russia. Instead, the main point of contention between Kerry and Lavrov appears to have been the worry that Ukrainian separatists will hold another referendum on joining Russia, in place of Ukrainian parliamentary elections in late October.

The American economist Henry George wrote, “What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.” In Russia, Vladimir Putin started a war and then, in response to mild American and European sanctions, retaliated by imposing greater sanctions—on his own people.

Russia on Thursday banned most imports of Western food products, a sweeping escalation in an economic war that will deal a multibillion-dollar hit to affected nations but will also unreel wide-ranging consequences at home.

The measures were a signal that Russia is not backing down from a confrontation that has sent Western-Russian tensions to heights not seen since the Cold War—and that it is willing to risk barer shelves and higher food prices at home in the name of striking a blow against countries that have tried to punish it over its role in the Ukraine conflict.

Russia has suspended imports of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and milk products from the United States, the 28-nation European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia for a year. The move came in retaliation for sanctions those countries imposed on Russia….

In Russia, the food measures promised to hit not just city centers, where the urban middle class has grown accustomed to visiting supermarkets overflowing with high-quality imported European cheeses, fish and sausages. Analysts warned that food prices also would increase and that a wide range of Russian industries, including food processing plants, shippers and retailers, would be affected….

“It will be quite sensitive,” said Yevsey Gurvich, the head of the Economic Expert Group. “Not only rich people will feel it, but literally every family will be affected.” He said he estimated that Russian consumer prices would go up 2 percent this year because of the measures.

“Alternatives to imported foods will be more costly, and, anyway, I believe they will be insufficient, and our supplies will diminish. And, hence, prices will go up,” he said.

Americans who wished for more painful sanctions on Russia than President Obama has imposed are getting their wish—thanks to Putin.

The Russian government announced on August 6 that it will ban imports of most food and agricultural products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Norway and the United States for one year. The full extent of the ban, as well as its effects on exporters and Russian consumers, are not yet clear. It is interesting, though, to contrast this action with an earlier effort to use food sanctions as a diplomatic weapon: the 1980 embargo of U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union.

The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 with 80,000 troops and 1800 tanks. President Carter responded by cancelling private contracts to supply 17 million metric tons (MMT) of U.S. wheat and corn to the Soviet Union. However, he chose to allow shipment of 8 MMT that had been agreed as part of the 1975 U.S.-Soviet Grains Agreement. Sales in excess of the level assured in the Grains Agreement were embargoed.

Because grains are relatively fungible, and because numerous countries had surpluses available for export, the Soviets were able to replace most of the embargoed grain from willing suppliers. Argentine agriculture did particularly well during that timeframe. U.S. agriculture did not do so well. Market prices had been relatively high, in large part due to strong export demand. When a considerable portion of that demand evaporated with the stroke of a pen, commodity prices fell precipitously.

The grain embargo became a potent political issue in the 1980 presidential campaign. Ronald Reagan’s opposition to the embargo helped to boost his campaign in rural areas. He took office in January 1981 and revoked the embargo three months later.

In retrospect, the grain embargo generally is seen as supporting the proposition that economic sanctions often inflict greater costs on the country imposing them than on the country at which they are aimed.

The new sanctions are expected to cut off some $15 billion in Russian imports from the EU. Russia has been Europe’s second largest (behind the United States) export market for foodstuffs, accounting for 10 percent of the EU’s total foreign sales. The United States has a smaller stake, with only $1.3 billion of food/ag exports to Russia. That country has been the third largest market for U.S. poultry exports. About 7 percent of U.S. poultry exports – valued at over $300 million – were shipped to Russia last year, down from 20 percent as recently as 2008. Russia’s WTO commitments should prevent import restrictions based on political pressures. Nonetheless, trade in poultry appears to have fluctuated over time in response to the influence of Russia’s domestic poultry producers. (It’s worth noting that Russia’s import ban does not include either baby food or wine. It’s not clear how those omissions should be interpreted.)

The shocking destruction of Malyasian Airlines MH17 is merely the latest in a string of cases in which irresponsible and unaccountable proxies have brought shame and international condemnation down upon the heads of their foreign sponsors. The precise details of how a passenger airliner carrying 298 souls fell from the sky still aren’t known, but, as Jon Lee Anderson notes in the New Yorker, ”however it played out, this sort of tragedy is a natural consequence of giving weapons to violent men who feel that their powerful sponsor allows them to commit crimes with impunity.”

One hopes, once the memorials to the victims are concluded, and friends and families have had time to come grips with their loss, that the MH17 incident will induce greater caution on the part of would-be foreign sponsors the next time they consider arming shadowy rebels. But I’m not that optimistic. It certainly won’t be sufficient to stop all such cases. Advocates will likely claim that the particular proxy group that they favor isn’t at all like the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, and, thus, that there is nothing to worry about. “Our guys can be trusted with these weapons,” they’ll say. One hopes that skeptics won’t be scorned and ridiculed for voicing concerns.

For now, the focus is appropriately on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cynical manipulation of the unrest in Ukraine. And that is where it should stay. I warned more than two months ago that Putin wasn’t the evil genius that some in the West have made him out to be, and that he likely had less control over the separatists in Ukraine than some alleged. His proxies might ignore him if he told them to stand down, I predicted, or do other things that he didn’t entirely support. The downing of a civilian airliner isn’t what I had in mind, but the bottom line is the same: senseless, tragic death. It doesn’t matter that Putin didn’t push the button that launched the missile, or that he didn’t want civilians – especially foreign nationals – targeted. If he provided separatists with weapons capable of causing such destruction, he bears responsibility for their actions.

That Putin appears to recognize this is proved by his mouthpiece Russia Today’s ham-fisted attempt to shift blame. RT’s initial report that it was caused by a Ukrainian missile fell apart almost immediately. Separatists, with Russian help, were seen trying to cover their tracks by moving SA-11 missile batteries within a few hours of the disaster. Strategic masterminds don’t deny responsibility for military operations that they are proud of. Eisenhower didn’t try to claim that the Normandy landings were a false flag operation. Douglas MacArthur’s forces at Inchon weren’t disguised as little green men. The absurdity of RT’s latest efforts prompted London-based RT reporter Sara Firth to quit in protest. “I couldn’t do it any more,” she told BuzzFeed. “Every single day we’re lying and finding sexier ways to do it.”

In the United States, hawks wasted no time trying to build support for tougher actions against Russia. This was inevitable. Whether any of these measures – including more military aid to Ukraine, more troops in Eastern Europe, and more sanctions – will have the desired effect seems to be beside the point. For my part, I would prefer forcing Putin to stew in the juices of his disastrous proxy war a little longer while the evidence of Russian complicity accumulates. We shouldn’t allow him to divert attention away from this heinous act.

I constructed a misery index and ranked 89 countries from most to least miserable based on the available data from the Economist Intelligence Unit. My methodology is a simple sum of inflation, bank lending and unemployment rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth. The table below is a sub-ranking of all former Soviet Union (FSU) states contained in my misery index.

For these FSU states, the main contributing factors to misery are high levels of unemployment and high interest rates.

NATO has produced some benefits, but the costs to the United States – tens of billions per year, validating Russian nationalist narratives about the West, and infantilizing its European partners – are often ignored. Washington should cut the Europeans loose, and encourage them to cooperate with each other on European security matters. With a combined GDP larger than the United States and a benign threat environment, Europeans are capable of defending themselves, but won’t until Washington makes them.